If you have been scanning the store page of our website, you will have noticed a significant change to products listed. There used to be a quantity of individual embroidery designs available which have now been removed. In their place are sets of designs which are now being marketed on our behalf by Designs Mall in USA. With their wide distribution of newsletters on a weekly basis, we are hoping for wider coverage of our designs as they are completed. As each set is sent to Designs Mall, it is placed on our website to be seen but not purchased - purchases are through Designs Mall for the next little while anyway.
If you have questions about the designs you can email me directly.
Sample set here is designed for Easter - see store for more detail, or go directly to Designs Mall and look at Herbwood Embroidery. There is a free design with both the line art and the coloured Easter eggs.

The latest arrivals are probably the smallest of our domestic zoo - bantam chicks have been hatching lately. They are really pretty, gold and dark brown stripes, and very self-possessed, scratching for food and running around.

Father and, we're not sure which is the mother, but the adults look very proud of their new babies.

Each year we've added to our orchard and tried to develop more vegetable garden. This year we will have (birds permitting) more fruit than last year - it seems to take a year or two for some to become established, then they suddenly start growing, flowering and fruiting. We've had a mulberry for about four years now and this year it's covered in fruit, just have to keep watering it. The cherry tree which has only been here for just over a year has its tiny topknot covered in fruit, hope they all develop. The peach is covered in leaf curl but has fruit nonetheless and the pear tree looks hopeful. The feijoa hasn't flowered yet but is now a decent size so, live in hope.
In just a week, which I spent on the other side of the country being happy with family, all the bright green grass, oats and sundry assorted weeds have dried out and there is little green to be seen now. Gotta mow fast now and feed the oatish stuff to the goats.

I should mention the roses, they are beautiful at the moment, if they can manage to open without geese or crows eating them first. Crows? Yes, a couple of them seen a few days ago munching and tugging at the buds. Odd.

We are very fortunate in that our property contains several distinct areas, one of which is seen during the wet winter season. A creek runs through the corner of the property with quite a broad aspect, deep enough in winter to be a host for a variety of birdlife. In effect we have a small lake in winter which contains many different types of ducks, stilts, the occasional heron, quite a few shelducks and, most prized, a family of black swans which return to raise a family most years. The photo shows one of the swans and a couple of shelducks. In summer the same area becomes much less interesting!

Just a quick update on the banksia flower - in the photo it was not quite fully in bloom and I missed its full splendour. However, this gives an indication of how it would have looked. Now it is a rather drab brown, drying off. Next year we should have many more.

There hasn't been much time to add posts for a while as we have had several unpleasant occurrences. There are always foxes around and farmers set baits for them and have night shoots to keep the numbers down. We have been very fortunate until lately when we have lost several of our geese to one or more fox visitors. It is not pleasant to go out early in the morning to let the geese out of their overnight yard ( they free roam during the day), and to find several decapitated bodies. The last straw was when our chief gander, Mr Herbwood, was found, obviously having been defending his flock, deceased. So now we lock them into a very small but totally wired in yard overnight.

It has been a good winter for grass growth, which sometimes conceals less palatable plants. Our girl goats have been in their current yard for over a year now with no problems, but recently one of youngsters, only 10 months old, and then two days' later her mother, succumbed to a mysterious and rapid illness. We found some marshmallow plants in the yard, and they recently had some new type of hay, containing rye grass. It is difficult to decide the cause of their fatal illness and we have many local suggestions, but when one of the older does started to follow we enlisted the local vet, obtained some antibiotic for her and isolated her. Whatever we did was successful and she is now complaining, wanting to return to her family. We seem to have stopped that problem now, and need to turn our attention to sheep which need crutching. Always something!

No photos this time, too sad.